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Re: [microprofile-wg] DISCUSSION Thread: MicroProfile dependency on Jakarta EE (tight or loose)
Thank you Jan for sharing your thoughts! By the way, MicroProfile has been using semantic versioning from the first release and each spec uses the plugin to work out whether there are breaking changes introduced or not.
As for Proposal 1, the implementation indeed needs to test the variation they support. The umbrella spec just specifies the minimum, as long as the impl can demonstrate they can support the combination, they can claim the certification.
Thanks
Emily

On Tue, Mar 7, 2023 at 8:28 PM Jan Westerkamp <jan.westerkamp@xxxxxxx> wrote:
@Reza: I would like to disagree you here - we need to discuss these proposals in detail, because it's not only affecting the next release, it's about all future releases until we change the strategy again.
And as the Google Doc and it's version history might get lost, this mailing list will be archived for future review.

I added some comments in the Google Doc, but I have major to minor concerns for all of these proposal variants.


First of all, from my point of view,  the discussion is mainly focused on the vendors and not the users view, while the last one is important for a successful specification in the long run.
Then second, we are focussing on releasing according to the past (retrograde) and not keep in mind potential future releases too (anterograde), when cutting releases.

Why we not officially decide to use Semantic Versioning (semver) first (and not something "alike" or following it partly only)?

Users like this de facto industry standard, as this manifests the design-by-contract pattern with well-defined rules in a short version number, which makes things simple!
When maintaining software according to semver, a consumer of a software artefact (like a dependency in an application or specification), knows by looking on the version number (string), what can be updated or combined in a safe way: A higher Patch Release is safe, as this should fix issues only and also a Minor Release is safe, while this might contain new features to, but in a non-breaking way. When updating to a Major Release, then extra caution is necessary, as this means at least something breaks! To know, if this affects you, this means RTFM (read the f...... manual) like release notes, spec documents etc.
Because Major Release updates create extra work (sometimes with no direct benefit for the consumer in the short), we should do them carefully and not more than necessary.
Therefore it's a good idea to combine multiple breaking changes in one single Major Release on component and umbrella spec level, so there is room for doing feature enhancements in future releases only with a Minor Release and also even allow to backport (some) of these new features aligned to older Major Releases later, without violating the versioning schema.
This simplifies maintenance too, as Patch Releases are possible for every existing version.

There are corner cases, where you can argument that the artefact in scope is not affected directly from a breaking change in a lower dependency level and you do not need to do a Major Release - but this can create a hidden link for the user of that artefact, as he might be affected - and looking at the version contract is not enough, because this is transitive...
The other way around is another possibility: Do the same breaking change in the upper artefact with a Major release with a non-Major Release in the dependency and then later, do a Major Release with this breaking change (and only that one, that was already done in the upper artefact) in it, combined with a non-Major Release in the upper artefact, so skipping the Major Release there. But this is not that obvious to the user and might confuse him. At least it requires some sort of RTFM again...

Example: The umbrella spec can decide to do a release that requires Java SE 21, but a component spec (as a part of it) could still allow Java SE 17 - even it can be used with the umbrella spec with Java SE 21 (or above) only. Then in the next release, the umbrella spec can do a non-Major Release that contains that component spec's Major Release, when the only breaking change in it is raising the requirement to Java SE 21 for it, as it was done for the umbrella spec already.

BTW, Java SE version schema deviates from semver severely, but there are breaking changes that are done with extra care, especially between LTS releases (including between 11, 17 and 21) - but this requires some RTFM again. ;-)
Helpful to identify them could be this Java Version Almanac (https://javaalmanac.io).

With the last Jakarta EE Releases, we have breaking changes too, and Jakarta EE 21 will be no exception, like Jakarta REST 4.0, Java SE 21 (LTS). Getting to non-experimental JPMS support might result in some breaking changes too, as JPMS disallows circular dependencies on modules and does not support (multiple) versions of a module.
This is another requirement we need to be aware of in MicroProfile too, especially when we let Jakarta EE depend on MP specs!


Regarding the proposals here my summary:

Proposal 1:
With semver it would be allowed to support newer versions in the future, but supporting multiple Major Releases as intended here is leaving the safe path and extremely dangerous!
Managing Ranges of versions for specs also lead to the problem, that they create multiple potential system environments and the need to test all of the ones we want to allow.
To remember, we are testing manually yet! Continuous Integration might help to ensure the component specs are tested in the umbrella specs scopes, so we do not end in surprises there. But even then we have the challenge to deliver a clean directed graph of dependencies for every variant and have a much higher chance to be affected by security issues through vulnerabilities - and this affects us now already...

Notably there are only two useful aspects, we should think of in general:
Let component specs depend on component specs only, not on umbrella specs directly, because then they would require unused dependencies. However, we definitively should manage the versions in the MP Parent with a BOM import, where possible.
The other aspect we might consider is defining the Jakarta EE Core Profile dependency as type provided - this could help with some issues.

Proposal 2:
This Lite Profile variant complicates things even more, while does not solve the system environment and testing issue.

Proposal 3:
When there is a breaking change for the user of a underlying dependency, like a higher minimum Java SE LTS version requirement of a Jakarta EE Core Profile Major Release (containing breaking changes), then we should plan a fitting MicroProfile Major Release to support this.
And I think with component specs depending on component specs only as mentioned above, a umbrella spec release can be done very soon after the Core Profile release - so implementations can support them together. Continuous Integration will help here a lot too.
Dependencies in both directions would be possible with this approach, as moving a spec in one or the other direction, as a hole or in part.

I have some small concerns regarding the described versioning in corner cases (see introduction here), but I think it's the most viable solution for the next release.
For allowing accelerated patching we can think about adding even the Jakarta EE dependencies as of type provided, so i.e. vendors do not have to wait for a spec release to fix a vulnerability.

Proposal 4:
This might be a solution in the long run, if we can not justify the existence of two separate WGs (as discussed in John's other thread).
I would not expect we can manage this for the release fitting to Jakarta EE 11 currently.


So, in conclusion I would vote for Proposal 3 definitively, may be by picking the useful two aspects from Proposal 1 additionally.
Otherwise the maintenance and user confusion will increase even more than yet, and I think we have to do a lot already...

For (some) of the details of ongoing issues, have a look at my CN4J call preparation slides:
Solving some of them (especially the security related ones) may require doing Patch Releases for Jakarta EE and MicroProfile (multiple versions) soon...

Agreeing on semver will make things clearer and may make some parts of the discussions obsolete in the future - and some parts can be automated with already existing tooling for semver easily!

Best,
Jan


Am 02.03.23 um 01:15 schrieb Reza Rahman:

Added some very minor comments. I think it's thorough enough already for people to make a decision.

On 3/1/2023 6:23 PM, Emily Jiang via microprofile-wg wrote:
After some lengthy discussion regarding the issue David raised in this thread that MicroProfile 7.0 is trying to solve, we revealed this googledoc  containing some proposals in yesterday's MicroProfile technical call. There are 4 proposals listed with cons/pros included.

For Proposal 4: Making the MicroProfile a profile of Jakarta EE, the group felt that there was a prerequisite to dissolve MicroProfile working group. This might not be feasible to release MicroProfile 7.0 in June 2023. With this in mind, the group felt it might be better for us to focus on Option 1, 2 and 3 and discuss further in the next few days till Tuesday next week. At the MicroProfile Live Hangout, we can decide whether we need further discussion or put up for a vote on Option 1, 2 or 3 among MicroProfile Working Members.

Proposal 1: MicroProfile releases support a minimum Jakarta EE versions
Proposal 2: Create MicroProfile Lite and rename the current umbrella to MicroProfile Full
Proposal 3: Release new MicroProfile versions when new Jakarta EE/Java SE versions are released
I understand not everyone was in yesterday's call. Please use this thread to share your thoughts.
Alternatively, please comment on the cons/pros of each individual proposal.

Thanks
Emily

On Wed, Feb 8, 2023 at 6:25 PM 'Emily Jiang' via MicroProfile <microprofile@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Thank you Arjan! Your proposal was added to the doc. We will continue the discussion of MicroProfile 7.0 next Tuesday.

On Wednesday, February 8, 2023 at 3:47:44 PM UTC Arjan Tijms wrote:
Hi,

On Tuesday, January 31, 2023 at 6:09:14 PM UTC+1 Emily Jiang wrote:
As promised, I have created this googledoc to capture and log some comments for this conversation.

Thanks for creating the document Emily.

Could you also add my proposal of making the Micro Profile a profile of Jakarta EE to the document as proposal 4?

I know some of you may think it's a peculiar proposal, but I would like to ask those people to do the following thought experiment:

"If the micro profile didn't exist yet, and today, given the situation of how Jakarta EE is at Eclipse and everything, we would talk about adding a micro profile and associated new APIs. Would you then wanted to create a new working group for this new micro profile, or would you add it as a profile to Jakarta EE?"

My guess is you already know the answer to this, but truthfully for yourself, go through this mental exercise. It may also help to think about why we didn't create new or separate working groups for the core profile last year and for the web profile after it was transferred.

Kind regards,
Arjan Tijms


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Thanks
Emily


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Thanks
Emily

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